Arthropods

Sometimes I hate living in the desert. And sometimes I hate living in the desert alone. Tonight I arrived home after a trip to the local bookstore and was greeted by a giant centipede on my living room floor. I've never seen a centipede outside my apartment, nevermind actually in my apartment. At first I thought it was a scorpion, which is a sight I'm sorry to say I've experienced many times before. But on closer (and by closer I mean there was at least 5 feet between me and the creature) examination it was no scorpion, it was a centipede and it was ALIVE. I quickly grabbed a little plastic tupperware container and put it over the centipede. It didn't seem to like that at all and started thrashing around under the plastic. I put one foot on the container and stretched to grab my cell phone to call a friend for advice. Yep, that's a centipede she said. Creepy, huh? Uh, yeah! When she realized I still had my foot on the container she suggested stacking some heavy books to weight it down instead. Good idea, I thought, but the heavy books wouldn't balance on the little container. A bigger container...ah, a pot! I grabbed my pasta pot and covered the plastic container, and then stacked books on top. If that centipede was going anywhere he'd have to be one determined fucker.

I got off the phone with my friend, but the idea of spending the night with a live centipede really started to freak me out. A few minutes later a neighbor friend called. There was a little small talk, but then I blurted out, 'can you please come over, I'm having a bug emergency!!!'. I don't think he knew what to expect when he saw my make-shift centipede prison, but he braced himself with one of my Sketcher tennis shoes as I began removing the books and the pasta pot. I left the plastic tupperware container for him to remove. At one point amid the swats I screamed as it thrashed about and seemed to be getting a little too close to me for comfort. I'm not sure how many swats of the tennis shoe it took to decimate the centipede, but it was upwards of five.

As to not leave you out of my horror, here is the centipede after it met the bottom of my tennis shoe and here's a picture I found on the internet of the centipede before. Man, those Scolopendra h. arizonensis are one nasty species.

Though I am relieved not to be spending the night with the centipede, I am still rather freaked out that it was here in the first place. Thank goodness for friends who live in the same apartment complex and don't mind coming to the rescue in a bug emergency. And at least I can cross off #403: meet another Arizona arthropod.